Day 4: Color Theory - Color Wheel

Color Wheel is a tool for combining colors. It was first created by Sir Issac Newton in 1666. The traditional Color wheel is based on Red, Yellow and Blue colors. There are different variations of color wheel as well.

Day 4: Color Theory - Hue, Tint, Shade, Tone

Hue is the basic element of Color Theory. When we ask "What is color is this?", what we are actually asking is Hue. These hues are dependent on the dominant wave length of light which is emitted or reflected from an object. Hue is pure color - like yellow, red, orange, blue etc.

Tints, Shades & Tones
These are different variations of hue. If pure Hue is made lighter by adding more white, it is called Tint. If black is added to pure Hue to get a darker version, it is called Shade. If gray is added, the result is Tone.

Hue:

Tint:

Shade:

Tone:

Day 3: Task - Create a New Brush in Photoshop

The Task:
Learn to create a new brush in Photoshop. I found a video tutorial to show you how to do the same.

Day 3: Task - Wallpaper Design

The Task:
To create an abstract wallpaper design by using only brush, smudge, dodge, burn, blur, sharpen tools.

Following is what I did, I recreated the following painting at home, took around 25 mins to do it.

Day 2: Principles of Design - Unity

When the design elements in a composition works together harmoniously to give the viewer a feel of relationship, it gives Unity to the design. Unity in a composition is important to good design.

Unity helps you to create a sense of order in the design and gives the individual elements a sense of completeness    that they are related to each other.

Day 2: Principles of Design - Dominance

Dominance relates to emphasis and visual weight in a composition. Eye is led to the most dominant element in the design. We can use different contrast methods to increase an element's dominance.

There are three levels of dominance:

1. Dominant
2. Sub-dominant
3. Subordinate

Day 2: Principles of Design - Contrast

Contrast occurs when two elements of a design are different. The greater the difference, greater the contrast. It is a way to emphasize what element is important in that design or directing users attention to a particular element. Contrast makes a design interesting thereby grabbing the attention of the viewer to the design.

Contrast can be achieved by using variety of:

• Shape
• Size
• Color Value
• Fonts/Type face
• Texture 

Day 2: Principles of Design - Balance

In the three dimensional space that we live in, we can find balance in almost all the forms we see. If a sculpture is not balanced, it would fall off. This applies to images created on a two-dimensional canvas as well. The artist need to create an illusion of balance in this case, instead of actual physical balance. This is referred to as Visual Balance.

Symmetrical Balance:

Symmetrical Balance is when the weight of the visual elements are distributed equally on both sides of the central axis.

Asymmetrical Balance:

Asymmetrical Balance is when both sides of the central axis are not the same, yet it will appear as the same weight on both sides by use of illusion.

Radial Balance:

In radial balance, all elements radiate outside from a center point in a circular fashion. All elements will lead your eye towards the center.

Day 2: Design & Visual Art

Qualities of Good Design

• Orderliness
• Aesthetic Approach
• User friendliness

Elements of Design

Point
A point is a precise position in space that has no extension. Line or form is a result of multiple points in space.

Line
A line is an element of art used to define shapes, forms and outlines. A line is characterized by its length and direction.

Shape
When a line crosses itself or intersects to create an enclosed space, it creates a shape. Shape is an element that has width and height but no depth.

Form/Space
A form/space is the three dimensionality of a sculpture, i.e. you can look around them from different angles or directions and also enter them which refers to as space of the sculpture.

Light/Dark
Light and dark shades also shows three-dimensionality of an object. Depending on the location of the light the object can give different dramatic looks for the object.

Texture
A Texture is surface quality of an object. It is related to the physical make up of a form. A texture also refers to make a picture surface look smooth or rough.

Color
A color is the response of the eye to different wavelengths of radiations from light. There are different color systems and color theories to look into. We will get to that in another post.

Day 1: Task

Here is the digital painting of Volcano for Day 1, as mentioned in the last post. Took around 20 minutes to complete. Used only Brush tool in Photoshop, by adjusting opacity and ink flow.

Day 1: Visual Design

Phewww!!! Just got back after the first day of the course. It was a bit comfortable to be honest, studying with classmates who are at least 9 years younger than me. I'm sure it was a bit uncomfortable for them as well (They seem scared...). But I think the generation gap will blur away after the first few days (hopefully).

A few minutes of the initial time was spend on Visual Design and the important of observation in daily life as a designer. If you are already an artist you are most probably doing it already, if you are not then start to observe different advertisement in the magazines, in the TV and look around your natural environments, even the simplest things like a rain drop and try to analyze what makes it beautiful and why it grabs your attention.

Rest of the day was spend to get familiar with Photoshop. It was boring as I already know Photoshop. But the first task to work for was interesting. May be you can try it yourself as well.

The task:
Paint a Volcano eruption at night by using only brush tool. i.e. no eraser, no layers. You can use different colors, brush's opacity, fill and brush sizes and brush hardness option in Photoshop.

The file I worked on is at the institute which I cannot copy outside. I will try to recreate that at home and will post it. Meanwhile you can also grab a volcano eruption at night photo from Internet and try to draw that using brush tool only. AGAIN, NO ERASER! You can use undo though.

Classes Starting Early

I got a call from the University Study Center today to inform that the classes for the degree animation course will be starting on July 12th, Monday, instead of 15th. Excited!

Warm Up

Last couple of days were busy! Today I thought to give a warm up to my drawing skills after a long break. It's been a while now since my last drawing.

Sharpening the Pencils Now!

So the first drawing on my new sketch pad. It' a woman with eyes closed behind a white cloth, only partial face of the woman is visible as the cloth is covering part of her head too. Here it is!

The Syllabus - Year 3

Year 3

Advanced Art

• Line of action
• Essentials of character designing
• Developing BG
• Walk cycle drawings

Advanced Modeling, Lighting & Texturing

• Advanced modeling techniques
• Advanced Texturing
• Natural & studio lighting
• Set creation

Advanced Animation & Rigging

• Character rigging
• Character Animation
• Facial animation & lip sync
• Human walk cycle using non linear animation

Matte painting, Advanced Compositing & Dynamics

• Digital matte painting
• Chroma keying
• Wire removal
• Rotoscoping
• Color correction
• Morphs & transition
• Advanced rendering techniques
• Output to various media formats

Portfolio Development

The Syllabus - Year 2

Year 2

Foundation Art

• Essentials of figure drawing
• Proportion & gestures
• Construction of human body using basic shapes
• Positioning of features proportionately on the face
• Figure drawing with costumes
• Cartooning
• Understanding Storyboard

2D Animation

• Creating animatics
• Principles of animation
• Scriptwriting
• Basic cartoon phonetics and vocalization
• Creating walk cycles
• Special effects in Flash

3D Design

• Introduction to 3D Graphics
• Modifying and deforming geometry
• Texturing and lighting basics
• Rendering techniques

Cinematography & non linear editing

• Shooting techniques
• Movie titling
• Multimedia presentation
• Rendering techniques

Communication Skills

• Introduction to communication
• Time management
• Motivation
• Body language
• Interview techniques

The Syllabus - Year 1

Following is the degree course content for Year 1. But we will be reaching form more tutorials and learn more than the following as my aim is to master the animation in 3 years not just a degree.

Year 1

English Prose and Composition
French
Visual Design

• Elements of design
• Principles of design
• Color Theory
• Typography
• Composition & layout
• Perspective drawing

Graphic Design

• Digital painting
• Collage making
• Restoration & retouching techniques
• Color & contrast correction
• Logo Designing
• Digital Illustration
• Advertisement designing
• Brochure designing
• Package designing
• Preparing artwork for print

Web Design

• Web page designing
• Optimizing images
• Coding in HTML
• Cascading style sheets
• Site management
• Animation using Flash
• Action script fundamentals
• Sound editing & processing

Tools & Prerequisites

To learn and master animation you need to have one basic qualification. A creative mind and some drawing/sketching skills.

Following are the tool set I already have with me. Nothing big, just basic stuff.

The System:

Core 2 Quad Core with a 1 GB DDR3 GeForce GT 240 Graphics card.

Not particularly a good graphics card to render 3D and Animation. But that will do for now. And we will get a new Nvidia Quadro card once we get to the meaty part of the course.

Drawing Tools:

• Sketch Book. It's good to have a sketch book to brush up the drawings skills.
• Pencils of different points, I mainly use HB & 2B pencils. I use pencils of brand Koh-i-noor.

Digital Drawing/Sculpting Tool:

Wacom Intuos4 Large - Pen Tablet

Ok. This one is optional. But I would highly recommend a digital tablet, when we do digital sculpting.

The Syllabus

I will be posting the Syllabus of the course soon. But our journey is not limited to the degree course syllabus, we will be doing more than that is in the syllabus. Will get back to you soon.

The Journey Begins

Welcome artists and enthusiast to share a 3 year journey to become a master in animation and visual effects.

A little about me! I am currently working and is already in the IT industry for around 9 years now, but my job was focused on Web Industry primarily related to coding and management level. But the artist in me always wanted to study animation and visual effects. After 9 years of busy schedule finally I have decided to take action on my goal and joined a degree course in animation as part time.

So why this blog?

This blog is the journey of me from the start of the course to getting certified degree after 3 years. And I want some motivation from you and also want to share what I learn on a daily basis to get to the animation master level. I will be posting photos of sketches, links to the articles I read and what I learn each day. And if you want you can follow along too.

The course I joined is expected to start on July 15th, I am yet to receive a final confirmation on the date from the university. But I do have some preparations to make before the classes start, and so do you.

Join me and we can work together to be do what we love, Art - Animation - Visual Effects